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Removing shares from shorting

I have read on some other forums that people are calling their brokers and isolating their shares. This is supposed to block the brokerage from utilizing these shares for shorting purposes. Now I don't know if this is true, but I will be calling my brokerage tomorrow to find out if this is so. If anyone knows about this please respond. Thnx

Stop Shorts From Hammering Your SIRI

Had heard that keeping GTC sell orders set would keep shorts from borrowing my shares. This is not true. Brokers still loan your shares for shorting. Here's what I found out: If you have a cash account you can request that your entire portfolio be restricted from share borrowing. You must call and request this. If you do not request it, assume that your broker is "lending" your shares for shorting.

If you have a margin account, you can typically have one or two positions isolated from the rest of your portfolio to prevent your broker from lending those shares for shorting. The rest of your porfolio will still be available to your broker for shorting.

I requested that my SIRI shares and one other stock position be isolated from the rest of my portfolio. I do not want my SIRI shares to be borrowed for shorting. I thought that I had prevented this by keeping my stocks for sale, but as I stated this does not do it. AFAIK, calling your broker is the only way to stop the borrowing and shorting of your Shares.

When your order is completed, you will see that SIRI will be placed in a separate box on your account web page from your other holdings.

They Already Have Your Permission

When you signed your brokerage agreement, you agreed to allow your broker to borrow or lend to others your shares for shorting. Wasn't that nice of them? Even though you are unaware of it, you have already given them your consent to short your shares! I know you will call your broker tomorrow, right John?

Update

Broker called this morning and said that he cannot isolate any stocks from my margin account to prevent them from being loaned for shorting. He explained that there is a new system called auto sweep that will not allow any positions to be separated from an account as they had done in the past. They are automatically redirected back to margin account status by the auto sweep.

The alternative is to open a separate cash account and place any shares you do not want loaned for shorting in that separate account. Of course, you could also change the whole account into a cash account, but then you would be prohibited from shorting Martha Stewart or anything else.

deewcom, I will call now, but the last time they called me to ask if they could barrow my shares in another company. I said yes then, because I did not know any better, it seemed to be a good enough deal. That was almost ten years ago, I know better now, not to let them do it at least with SIRI.

Pull the shorts off the shorts

Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 2

Thumbs up The shorts write crap like this to....
Yep shorts post this crap all over the net in all the forums regardless of the stock to benefit their short positions and then when all the uninformed chickens sell out it plays into their covering somewhere down the road. Do not sell out of SIRI because that along with isolating your shares or having them physically mailed to you prevents them from their ultimate goal and we all know what that really is. SIRI is a very strong buy in my opinion and we should see at least a double in 6 to 12 months so be vigilant.